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No 6 (2024)
Issues of Modern Russian Language
From Expedition Records in the Village of Yudino, Voronezh Region: Interaction of the Local Vernacular Ukrainian with the Russian Language
Abstract
The article is based on the material recorded by the authors during an expedition in 2024 to the village of Yudino, Podgorensky district, Voronezh oblast, whose dialect can be localised as Ukrainian. The analysis of the audio transcripts of three villagers (the main informants were two women born in 1935 and 1937) allowed us to identify the main features characteristic of the original vernacular, as well as to examine some of the results of the interaction between the vernacular and Russian, which is the only official language in the area where the vernacular exists: the mass media (television, radio) and school education are in Russian.
The main phonetic features: [i] in place of *м under accent and without accent (but in loanwords [e]: mel), in place of *e in the new closed syllable; in unaccented syllables the reflexes of *y, *i and *e coincide in the sound [y], but in the final open syllable the reflexes of these vowels differ; there is a distinction of /o/ and /a/ in unaccented syllables, except for borrowings from Russian; labial consonants are softened only before [i]; the phoneme /v/ is represented by a bilabial sound, but in some cases before [s] — by a unvoiced fricative [f]; the phoneme /g/ is represented by a pharyngeal voiced sound [h], except for single borrowings, where [g] is used.
Grammatical peculiarities: short forms of adjectives; ending -oho in the genitive case of masculine and neuter adjectives and pronouns, etc.
Along with well-preserved native vocabulary, there is a large number of various borrowings from the Russian language.
7-18
Compressive Word-formation as an Active Process in the Russian Language in the Coronavirus Age
Abstract
The article is devoted to the compressive word-formation, which is a striking distinctive feature of the coronavirus era language. Based on the action of the economy of speech effort law, it leads not so much to the emergence of information-rich formations, but to the birth of emotionally charged, evaluative, and often humorous neologisms. Using COVID-related vocabulary as research material, the author examines such types of word-formation compression as interword overlap, contamination, univerbation and abbreviation. The choice of this lexical layer is explained by the fact that the coronavirus pandemic, which swept the whole world in the period from 2020 to 2022 and which became a turning point in the life of society, led to the coining of a large number of new words, a significant part of which is the result of compressive word-formation. Among the different types of word-formation compression, the most productive in the word production of COVID neologisms were contamination (kovikuly, karantini, infodemiya) and interword overlap (covideo, pandemiting), while univerbation was less productive (udalenka, distant). Truncation and abbreviation, which act as active methods of word formation in the modern Russian language, on the contrary, were unproductive when it came to coining COVID neologisms. The analysis allowed the author to conclude that the new developments of the coronavirus pandemic era only partially reflect the general trends occurring in the Russian language.
19-33
On the Semantic Evolution of Kuda ni Kin’
Abstract
The paper concerns the semantic evolution of the Russian expression kuda ni kin’ on the material of the Russian National Corpus. On the synchronous level, this expression has two distinct meanings: visual (1) ‘wherever you look’ and mental (2) ‘whatever you think about’. Corpus data show that more abstract semantics (2) came into use first. This might suggest that, contrary to the widely accepted theories of metaphor, the active usage of the more abstract meaning (2) preceded a more concrete meaning (1). After studying the development of lexically closely related expressions kak ni kin’, kuda ni kin’ glazom/vzgl’ad and the proverb kuda ni kin’, vs’udu klin with the data acquired from Russian corpora, we come to the conclusion that kuda ni kin’ must have inherited its abstract meaning from the proverb, and later on it must have undergone a contamination process with the expression kuda ni kin’ (glazom/vzgl’ad), thus causing both the unexpected homonymy between the expressions and the uncharacteristically late upsurge of contexts with the meaning (1). Initially, kuda ni kin’ began to be used as an independent expression as a result of the omission of the second part of the proverb and inherited mental semantics from it. A new stage of its development was associated with the emergence of an elliptical variant of the construction kuda ni kin’ (glazom/vzgl’ad), which, in turn, was characterized by visual semantics. Thus, the order in which the meanings of kuda ni kin’ were formed reflects not the semantic development from abstract to concrete, but the formal coincidence of different constructions in one expression.
34-51
From the History of the Russian Language
One More Time on the Origin of Russian Supir, Superik ‘Ring’
Abstract
The article focuses on the origin and functioning of the word supir, which means ‘a ring with a stone or glass insert’, and its variants (supirchik, superik, etc.) These problems were already discussed in detail by I. G. Dobrodomov on the pages of “Voprosy jazykoznanija” in 2009. The cases of its use (mainly in fiction) were presented there and the conclusions were drawn about the borrowed nature of these words. The author argued that they originated from the French soupir ‘sigh’ which actualized the idea of a ring as a memorable gift. We believe that this version lacks semantic and sociolinguistic foundations. We add extensive dialect materials with a wide geography of fixations to the already available data on the use of these words and propose a version about their native origin within the word family pir- / per- / por- (derivatives of Proto-Slavic *perti, *pyrǫ), to which, for instance, belongs the word zaperet’ (‘to lock’) in modern Russian. Thus, the internal form of these words reflects that the stone ‘is locked’ in the ring, that is, the word focuses on the fixation of the stone in the ring, which is an essential characteristic of this piece of jewelry.
52-71
“The Charter of Military, Cannon and Other Matters Relating to Military Science” of 1777–1781 as a Source on the History of Russian Lexicon of the 17th Century
Abstract
The article offers a critical analysis of some lexical facts in “The Charter of military, cannon and other matters relating to military science” — a monument of the first quarter of the 17th century, which was published in 1777–1781 by V. G. Ruban. The charter was based on a lost copy and was a selective translation of the second volume of L. Fronsperger’s military treatise “Kriegsbuch”. Linguists usually study the vocabulary of the “Charter” based on the printed edition of the 18th century, without taking into account the surviving copies of the monument and its German original. A comparison of the printed “Charter” with its existing copies made it possible to identify discrepancies, including at the lexical level, which could have arisen both during the compilation of the lists and the publication. Such errors led to the appearance of pseudo-hapaxes (such as gasar, koshoda, perinkavus) and hapaxes (variant opelyment), as well as unreliable lexical facts, apparently appearing in the “Charter” as a result of an incorrect reading of the handwritten text (such as aksis, ambrazura, variant iglorit). Consequently, the text of the printed edition of the “Charter” must be used in linguistic research in conjunction with the material of the existing lists of the monument, as well as the German original.
72-85
The Language of Fiction
Structural-Semantic Analysis of Verbs and Nouns Representing Bird Vocalizations in M. Prishvin’s Artistic and Diary Heritage
Abstract
This article investigates the linguistic means employed to convey avian vocal signals within M. Prishvin’s writer’s perspective. The study used the AntConc software and was conducted in two stages, resulting in the formation of the writer’s ornitophonosphere depiction as a complex, multi-level phenomenon. Initially, all ornithonyms encountered in M. Prishvin’s literary works and diary entries were identified, followed by an analysis of their most vivid verb-based and noun-based sound-descriptive lexemes. Authors adhere to traditional classification in describing bird sounds, enabling the differentiation of vocal diversity among avian species in M. Prishvin’s oeuvre based on loudness, intensity, pitch, timbre, tempo, and clarity. The application of corpus analysis of the collected data helped to create a comprehensive picture reflecting the multi-layered and individual ornithophonosphere of the writer, demonstrating his deep understanding and sensitive perception of the surrounding world. The analysis of lexical richness and linguistic finesse of M. Prishvin’s idiolect in capturing avian vocalizations not only reveals the writer’s unique approach to ornithological themes but also provides the readers with a deeper understanding of the true voice of nature through the prism of his artistic and diary heritage.
86-98
The Dog Who Tells Lies in Nikolai Gogol’s Comedy “Marriage”
Abstract
This article draws attention to the expression pyos vryot ‘dog tells lies’ found in the matchmaker’s line from the comedy “Marriage” by Nikolai Gogol. Researchers have already studied the peculiarities of women’s speech in this comedy and the “linguistics of lying” in Gogol’s texts but the phrase “lying dog” was hardly noticed by them. The word dog addressed to a person have long been considered an obscene word which correlated with the disdainful attitude towards these animals. The East Slavic word brekhat’ possesses two meanings ‘to bark’ and ‘to tell lies’. The main meaning of brekhat’ in Russian is ‘to bark’ while the meaning ‘to lie’ is more common in Russian dialects. On the contrary, the main meaning of Ukrainian brekhati is ‘to tell lies’. The action of the comedy “Marriage” was originally supposed to take place in a village or small town (apparently in Ukraine). Gogol worked on the comedy for a long time and later moved its action to St. Petersburg. While working on his comedy, Gogol didn’t delete or rework this line although the expression pyos vryot is either a Ukrainianism or a colloquial expression, which is not very appropriate in the speech context of the Russian metropolitan society. This expression is not noted among the identified Ukrainianisms in Gogol’s texts. Perhaps Gogol deliberately retained such unusual words for the matchmaker showing that while living in St. Petersburg she remains a provincial.
99-114
Ornithological Metaphor as a Means of Creating a Visible Image in the Poetic Battles of the Early 19th Century
Abstract
The study’s aim is to reveal the semantic component of the ornithological metaphor in the verbal battle poetry of the late 18th — early 19th centuries. In order to achieve the aim the article defines the sources of the artistic imagery of the battle poetry. On the material of the “The Collection of poems related to the unforgettable year 1812” we study the poetic mechanisms of creating a vivid image, which has a high impact. The article reveals that the ornithological metaphor, which forms a particularly significant stratum of “Collected...” metaphorics, functions as a stable nomination for presenting the opposition “soldier — enemy”, as an image-replacement for creating battle pictures and as an image-emblem, endowing the poetic text with additional meanings through visual symbolism. The article provides a comparison of usage tendencies and peculiarities of ornithological metaphors construction in byliny, historical songs, ancient Russian war stories, with the battle poetry by Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, who were the witnesses of the Great Patriotic war events. As a result of the study it is proved that ornithological metaphor as a tool of visually oriented influence has evolved from traditionally fixed semantics to individual contextual meanings, while retaining its basic, nuclear meanings — creating the image of a warrior, enemy, battle or victory. It is argued that verbal battle poetry of the 1810s, which developed in the light of a change of artistic paradigms, was oriented towards a transformation of the representational system, a gradual abandonment of allegorical pictures in favour of an ontologically filled image. In the poetry written during the Patriotic War of 1812 the author reveals the process of individualization of metaphor, enriching ornithological images with additional symbolic connotations and meanings, correlating with the worldview, which took shape in the Russian society during the War of 1812.
115-127